Notes from a long position
Long-term positions are held through years that feel wrong. These are notes on market psychology and long-term strategy, written by someone still holding.
Why the Exit Plan Matters More Than the Entry
Almost all attention goes to when to buy. Every serious loss I have seen was determined by what happened at the other end.
September 9, 2026, 2 minSeparating the Asset From the Sector
Most bad news in crypto is about something you do not hold. Distinguishing the two is a habit rather than an insight.
September 9, 2026, 2 minTen Years of Holding: What Actually Compounds
Not the returns, which are whatever the market did. The habits, the documentation and the calibration compound, and they are the part you control.
September 9, 2026, 2 minWhen the Thesis Actually Breaks, and How to Tell
I have exited one position permanently in eight years. Working out that it was a broken thesis rather than a bad month took an uncomfortable amount of honesty.
September 9, 2026, 3 minFour Years of Quarterly Notes: What the Record Shows
I have written a note every quarter since 2021. Read end to end, the pattern in my own errors is more consistent than I expected.
September 8, 2026, 3 minWhat Happens to Your Crypto If You Die
The most-ignored practical problem in self-custody. There is no probate process that helps, and the default outcome is permanent loss.
September 5, 2026, 3 minThe Cost of Checking, Measured
I recorded every time I looked at the price for a month and scored what each check produced. The answer was nothing, eleven times out of eleven.
September 4, 2026, 2 minRebalancing Without Emotion: A System That Survived Two Cycles
The mechanics are trivial. Everything that makes rebalancing work is in the parts that remove judgement from it.
September 1, 2026, 3 minWhat I Tell People Who Ask If They Should Buy
A short answer I have refined over several years, and the three questions I ask before giving any of it.
August 30, 2026, 2 minThe Cost of Being Early, and Why Nobody Talks About It
Being right too soon is financially indistinguishable from being wrong, for as long as it lasts. That period can last years.
August 26, 2026, 2 minThe Difference Between Patience and Paralysis
Both look like holding. One is a decision renewed with evidence, the other is an absence of decision, and they end differently.
August 24, 2026, 2 minWhat a Bear Market Does to Your Reading Habits
The sources change, the tone changes, and the change is in the reader rather than in the sources.
August 19, 2026, 2 minWhat I Got Wrong in 2018, in My Own Words
I kept notes through the last long bear market. Reading them back is an education in how confident bad reasoning sounds at the time.
August 17, 2026, 3 minWhen Boredom Is the Signal
The periods when nothing is happening and nobody is talking about it have historically been the most productive time to be accumulating.
August 13, 2026, 2 minThe Emotional Cost of a Concentrated Position
Concentration is defensible on the arithmetic and expensive in ways the arithmetic does not capture.
August 8, 2026, 2 minPosition Sizing for an Asset That Falls 70 Percent
Most sizing advice assumes normal volatility. Here is how to think about an asset where a decline of two thirds is an ordinary event.
August 5, 2026, 3 minWhy I Trimmed Into Strength and Would Again
Selling a portion during an advance reduced my eventual return. It was still correct, and the distinction matters more than the outcome.
August 4, 2026, 2 minWhy I Do Not Discuss My Positions Publicly
Stating a position out loud changes your relationship to it in a way that is measurable in your own subsequent decisions.
August 2, 2026, 2 minOn Holding Something You No Longer Believe In
There is a state between conviction and exit where a position persists because leaving requires a decision. It is worth naming.
July 28, 2026, 2 minHow Long-Term Holders Actually Behave On-Chain
Coin age data offers one of the few objective windows into holder behaviour. It is also routinely oversold. Here is what it can and cannot show.
July 25, 2026, 3 minReading Old Predictions, Including My Own
I scored five years of my own forecasts. The results were humbling in a specific and useful way.
July 22, 2026, 2 minWhy I Stopped Predicting Anything
Not out of humility. Because I scored my own record and nothing in my strategy depends on forecasts anyway.
July 16, 2026, 2 minThe Case Against Checking Your Portfolio Daily
Daily checking produces no information and a measurable amount of distress. The arithmetic of why is more interesting than the advice.
July 13, 2026, 3 minHolding Through a Narrative Collapse
The story explaining why an asset matters can fail while the asset continues working. Separating the two is most of the job.
July 11, 2026, 2 minMy Quarterly Review Template
Three questions, fifteen minutes, the same date every quarter. It is the only process I have that has never been skipped.
July 4, 2026, 2 minHow I Handle Being Wrong in Public
I publish method, which means publishing the failures. Three rules I use for writing about my own mistakes without making them useless.
July 1, 2026, 2 minWhat Conviction Means When You Are Down 40 Percent
Conviction is usually described as a feeling. The useful version is a document written when you had nothing to defend.
July 1, 2026, 3 minThe Trap of Averaging Down Without a Rule
Buying more as something falls is either disciplined accumulation or throwing money at a mistake. Nothing in the moment distinguishes them.
June 30, 2026, 2 minBuilding a Liquidity Buffer Before You Need It
Being a forced seller is how an ordinary drawdown becomes a permanent loss. The defence is entirely outside the asset.
June 26, 2026, 2 minFOMO, FUD and Five Other Words That Cost People Money
Crypto vocabulary is unusually effective at shutting down thought. Seven terms, what each one actually does, and what it replaces.
June 21, 2026, 3 minOn Not Having a Price Target
Every target I have ever set was either reached and ignored, or missed and revised. I stopped setting them and the decisions improved.
June 18, 2026, 2 minWhat Survivorship Bias Looks Like From Inside
I am part of a sample that selected itself by not quitting. That makes almost everything I conclude from my own experience suspect.
June 13, 2026, 2 minThe Year I Added Nothing
Twelve months with no new capital deployed, for reasons entirely unrelated to the market. What it revealed about the rest of the process.
June 11, 2026, 2 minSelling Rules You Should Write Before You Need Them
Every rule I have written during a drawdown has been bad. The ones written in calm months have all held up.
June 8, 2026, 3 minHow I Decide What Counts as Evidence
During a drawdown, every argument is available and most of them are noise. Three tests separate the ones worth acting on.
June 6, 2026, 2 minThe Second-Order Effect of Telling People You Hold Something
Beyond the commitment problem, there is a subtler cost: you become the person they ask, and that changes what you read.
June 1, 2026, 2 minThe Rule About Never Adding on a Green Day
An arbitrary-sounding rule that removed an entire category of my worst decisions. The reasoning is behavioural rather than analytical.
May 30, 2026, 2 minDCA vs Lump Sum: What the Numbers Actually Say
The research favours lump sum investing. The research also assumes you behave like a spreadsheet, which is where the argument gets interesting.
May 27, 2026, 3 minThe Difference Between Risk and Volatility
Volatility is how much the price moves. Risk is the probability of a permanent loss. Treating them as the same thing produces two opposite errors.
May 26, 2026, 2 minWhat Happens to Conviction After a Recovery
Surviving a drawdown makes the next one feel manageable. That confidence is the most dangerous thing a recovery produces.
May 20, 2026, 2 minThe Psychology of Watching Your Portfolio Drop 60 Percent
A month-by-month account of what a deep drawdown actually does to your reasoning, and which parts of it are worth listening to.
May 16, 2026, 3 minWhy I Keep a Written Investment Policy
One page, reviewed quarterly, amended only in calm months. It has made more decisions for me than my judgement has.
May 14, 2026, 2 minRegret Minimisation as a Decision Framework
Asking which outcome I would regret more produces better decisions than asking which is more likely, because I am bad at probabilities and good at anticipating regret.
May 8, 2026, 2 minWhy Holding Is Harder Than Buying
Buying is a single decision. Holding is the same decision renewed every day for years, under conditions designed to make you renew it differently.
May 5, 2026, 3 minSizing a Position You Intend to Hold for a Decade
A ten-year horizon changes the sizing calculation in ways that are not obvious, and most of them argue for a smaller position rather than a larger one.
May 2, 2026, 2 min